Computerized applications have become more and more popular. With advances in information technology, numerous amounts of binary data, such as text, images, music, and videos, are widely accessible, such as on web pages. The binary data can be easily downloaded and distributed or linked to by users, and in some cases, for unauthorized purposes. Digital watermarking is one of the solutions to prove the ownership and authenticity by hiding binary information, such as a random sequence or logo, into the digital media.
However, encoding hidden data, such as a digital watermark, into binary data is prone to undesirable distortion. For example, when hidden data is encoded into an image, the image with the hidden data can include undesirable effects such as visual distortion. Similarly, when hidden data is encoded into audio binary data, such as music data, the music data is prone to undesirable aural distortion. This distortion can be especially problematic for certain types of binary data, such as halftone images.
In this regard, most conventional data hiding techniques, such as conventional digital watermarking techniques, are designed for particular types of binary data, such as multitone images, and are not suitable for other types of binary data, such as halftone images. Other conventional data hiding techniques are not efficient in reducing the number of modifications for a given size of hidden data. Thus, more distortion of the binary data is likely to result from the relatively large number of modifications performed.
The above-described deficiencies and limitations of current data hiding methods are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of today's data hiding techniques, and are not intended to be exhaustive. As such, other problems with the state of the art can become further apparent upon review of the description of various non-limiting embodiments that follow.